


Smoker's Club

by masongrey



Series: pearlet one-shots [3]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Gross, M/M, What else is new, alcohol abuse too, bitter old lady brigade, cross dressing chain smokers, everybody smokes, fame wants someone to understand him, ginger is a bitter pageant girl, girls just want to have fun, past drug abuse mentioned, pearl has withdrawals, smokers club, they just want to fit in here, they're drag queens, violet is weird, well not everybody, what do you expect really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:32:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masongrey/pseuds/masongrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The smoker's club: Ginger, Katya and Pearl. </p><p>The others: Fame and Violet.</p><p>They all just want to be heard, but not everybody is willing to listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoker's Club

**Author's Note:**

> you can  
> kudos if you like it  
> comment if you love it  
> bookmark if you're nasty  
> :P have a swell day

The smoker's club.

Pearl and Katya and Ginger.

It's all very new and exciting when they start out. The show, their little smoker's club. Everything still shines and the tar floor of the sound stage is as enticing as they all imagined it would be. The backstage lounge is a place where they should all feel safe, feel like they should be able to kick their feet up, drink their cocktails and kiki. But when too much becomes too much, when the tensions are high and the air is sluggish and thick, and shade is on everyone's lips; when the cameras loom and the attendants flit about madly like flies, Pearl and Katya and Ginger have an escape. The smoker's club.

Pearl grabs his little ziploc baggie of camels, Katya his menthols and Ginger his marlboros.

They don't need to make up a lame bathroom excuse, or move to the mirrors to fluff their hair and primp in order to get away.

They have a free pass to the outside world. All they have to do is strike a lighter and inhale. The air is fresh and light, the sun feels glorious, even in an itchy wig, deadly heels, a ballgown and a pound of makeup.

They have one rule and one rule only in the smokers club; don't let Katya piss in the gutter or twerk on the cameramen.

\- - -

So yeah, in the beginning it's all fine and good and _fun_. It's fun to be part of something. It makes Pearl's heart swell a little, even if he knows damn well that Ginger's really only in it for the smokes, and Katya too is a full-fledged member of the bitter old lady brigade. Pearl should, by all means, be an outsider here. He's not old, and he's not bitter. He doesn't even fucking know what the word brigade means.

The other queens have a lot to say about Pearl. They say he's boring, dumb, unmotivated. They sneer at his style of drag and clock him for moaning and complaining about their insults. They say he's sleepy, tired, withdrawn, _weird._

The truth is, the main problem the other queens have with him is the fact that they feel threatened by him, and he knows it. And the real root of Pearl's “personality issue” is the fact that he's going into serious withdrawals. He's had a blunt a day for the last year and a half, sometimes more. And the transition from ganj-topia, to the dry, dry desert of drag race is not an easy one to make. No, not an easy one at all. His head fucking pounds, his nerves (believe it or not) are fucking shot, and the jitters and shakes are a real thing.

Pearl has never smoked so many cigarettes in his life.

He'd never really been a cigarettes kind of guy to start with. Yeah, they're hot, and yeah they make you look rad as hell, but they also make you smell rank and fuck your lungs up something fierce. But Pearl has always been demanding of aesthetic. So he picked up the slight habit of a cigarette on the side and never quite shook it.

In the outside world it would be a pack a month for him, maybe. And even then he only really broke them out during weed dry spells. But now, he smokes the house down. He smokes like he's trying for lung cancer or something. He smokes to calm himself down, to escape into the warm breeze, to relax.

He's been depending on weed to keep him chill for a while now, naturally laid back though he is, and without it he feels like he's being peeled into pieces and blended alive into one large, messy fruit smoothie. So he turns to nicotine. Nicotine's no mary jane, but she will have to do.

\- - -

Katya has always been addicted to something. Penises, Lucky Charms cereal, anxiety.

When he was younger it was gymnastics. He loved the swirling and spinning and strength that it required. He was fascinated by the proud way the gymnasts carried themselves, the power behind their steady steps, the precision behind their movements.

Then, when he was a little bit older, it was alcohol. He loved the way it loosened him, the way it could shut him off like nothing else. He loved how everything sort of pulsed into one large splatter of color and noise when he got really loaded. He loved the sloppy way it mushed everything up. He loved the way alcohol softens things, blurs them at the edges.

Then it was cocaine. He didn't love the cocaine. Not comfortably, like he had loved the alcohol. He had a wary respect for the coke, the way it flicked his switch and sent electricity zapping through him. Coke doesn't blur the edges, it heightens them.

And then, heroin. He didn't love heroin. He had no respect for heroin. He just needed it. Needed it like a fatally wounded animal needs a bullet straight to the head.

Heroin doesn't blur the edges, it destroys them. For a while, it destroyed him.

He's been sober for a year and a half now and especially here in this competition that shit is no easy feat. But by banding together he and Miss Fame manage to stave the alcoholic demons away.

But Katya needs an addiction. He just does. If he could change one thing about himself, it would be his need to constantly just be fucked over by drugs and booze and boys.

He wants to fix his addictive personality, change it. But just as much as Pearl won't let anyone see him stressed, and Violet won't deflate his ego, he can't.

And anyways, it's better to be addicted to cigarettes than the sound of your own tears or the swift click of a needle.

So Katya joins the smoker's club.

\- - -

Violet wants a place.

He came here with one thing in mind, winning.

He thought it was the best strategy, stay in your own lane, keep to yourself, build some goddamn walls and never let them see you sweat. But he knows he's wrong. Knows it with all his heart as he sees Fame and Katya cry and cling to each other in the werk room. Violet hasn't let anyone see him sweat. No one knows he's sweating at all, which strategically speaking, is killer. But he wants what Katya and Fame have. He wants that. He wants a pair of eyes to look _into_ him and understand and he wants a hug from someone that doesn't just feel an obligation to provide comfort. He wants a friend.

It's weird for Violet. This whole friendless situation. He's too confident in how fucking awesome he is to have no close friends here, it's never really happened to him before. He does have Fame, he reminds himself. But then again, Fame is everyone's friend. And being close with everyone's friend is sort of like not having a friend at all.

The whole smoker group situation is something he wishes he could hit up so badly.

He's almost tempted to beg a smoke off of Katya with puppy-dog eyes and just hold it and stand with them. But, of course, it just wouldn't feel right.

He would give up both his nipple rings to instantly become a chain smoker like Ginger, just so he would have a decent excuse to tromp out the sound stage door in his cha cha heels and fit right in.

Maybe not both his nipple rings. Maybe not a chain smoker. Definitely a social smoker. Just a casual nicotine consumer who's totally in it for the fresh air and sunshine and none of the harsh side-effects.

And Pearl. Pearl certainly wouldn't hurt.

Who is he kidding. Violet's so horny he would go for Mimi Imfurst right about now. Drunk, blindfolded and in the dark, of course.

But then again, with everyone so off their rockers for it, Pearl probably wouldn't take much convincing, would he?

So yes, being done by Pearl would certainly be a bonus.

But Violet really just wants some friends.

Really.

\- - -

Ginger is a self proclaimed chain smoking cross-dresser. And he's been chain smoking and cross-dressing semi-religiously for fifteen years. He needs these smoke breaks, honey.

It kills him slowly to be on this smoke schedule. It drives him crazy to not just be able to light one up whenever, wherever.

 

Pearl is just an Elizabeth Taylor smoker, in it for the calm, the glamour, the beauty.

Ginger's had quite enough of that.

Katya clings to smoking desperately. Like if he stopped, the world would end.

Ginger understands that.

Ginger's not quite like that himself. Ginger depends on them plenty. But it's a chemical dependance, not a psychological one. Smoking to him is sort of like having a penis. You need it and you use it and you have fun with it but it just sort of chills there until you twist it up and shove it away so you can get that perfect drag look. By that metaphor it's ironic that untucked is when the cigarettes come out. But Ginger doesn't care about irony. And no one actually untucks on untucked anyways.

Pearl smokes like a swan, long neck, elegant face, punk rock attitude.

Katya smokes like a drowning cat clutching onto a tree branch, trying to avoid panic with claws and wet fur and deep breaths.

Ginger smokes like he has a job, like he has a mission. He smokes like like a charging cheetah, fast and spotty and with a real purpose.

They're all here for different reasons. Both the smoking area, and the competition.

Ginger's an old, practiced, pageant girl. He's not used to different reasons, he's used to the same old polished ones.

He supposes he'll just have to get used to them.

It will be difficult. But he will just have to find a way.

\- - -

It's not easy for Fame. It's not easy to constantly come from a place of authentic openness and warmth. It's not easy to be so emotionally vulnerable to so many people. He's sure it will bite him in the ass at some point in this competition. Ideally he would just worry about himself, ideally he could leave his compassion at the door and just get on with it. But he can't seem to shut that part of himself off.

Some of the other queens take advantage of him. He knows that. They take advantage of the easy, open way he is with people.

They laugh at him, he knows they do. They laugh at how openly he speaks, how often.

Trust him, he wishes he could have left that part of himself behind. But it's not that simple.

He just wants to be understood, really understood. He wants someone to try and understand him like he tries to understands everyone else. He has Violet, but Violet is really too guarded, really too sequestered within himself to try and make any sense of Fame's problems. He had Trixie, but Trixie left far too soon.

Fame's problems are very deeply imbedded in all the things that he doesn't say, not the things that he does.

No one really knows him like he knows all of them. No one is trying with him like he tries with all of them. And it sucks.

He doesn't need Ginger's approval, Katya's approval or Pearl's approval. He doesn't need the wrinkles or the yellow teeth or the ashtray breath or the fuck-all attitude that's attached, but he really could use the fresh air and the quiet solidarity.

So, just for the daily ten minutes or so when all the smokers line up to head outside, just for a little bit, he wishes he was with them.

\- - -

The competition goes on. Many leave but the smokers stay strong. They fit together, in a cobbled, messy sort of way. There's drama, sure. There's fights, sure. But the draw of the outside world is a real thing, and it pulls them up from the couches and together outside.

Pearl is trying not to be a bitch, but he's unsure of everything. It comes off as a cool and collected attitude, but he can feel everything slowly falling apart. The judges taunt him, tease him, the other queens seem to be through with his attitude. Everywhere he turns people are telling him to be different, when they seem to like Ginger just the way he is and it fucking sucks. He has become nothing more than a joke about his personality and he's sick of it.

Violet's been weird lately, when all Pearl wants to do is talk to him. But Violet gets red and ducks away and he's not fucking directly speaking to Pearl anymore and Pearl has had just about all that he can take.

Pearl has no idea what he's doing wrong. If they don't like his personality, how is he supposed to fix it? If Violet won't tell him what's wrong, how is he supposed to fix it?

At least Katya is still on his side. At least Katya will still speak to him. Fucking Violet and his stubborn fucking attitude.

Pearl knows he's lip synching tonight. Knows it with a sureness that calms him more than this nicotine he's desperately inhaling.

He's no longer an easy smoker, now he smokes like it hurts him to stop.

And when they get the five minute warning and drag themselves back inside, it sort of does.

\- - -

Fame knows that they are sick of him. He knows that a woman should know when she's no longer wanted.

Trixie is gone, Violet is too busy lusting over Pearl to pay him any mind lately. No one else respects him.

He thought people would like the stories about his chickens, about his life. He thought people would like _him_. Enough to want him around, anyways. He thought that they had respect for his drag.

Guess not.  

His head is fucking fine, thank you very much.

\- - -

Violet is stretched out on Fame's lap, curled into his warmth. Fame knows he's done, he whispered that much into Violet's ear.

Violet feels terrible. Pearl's mad at him, or ignoring him or something. And he's been too busy chasing tail to pay attention to the one person who was always there for him. Fame is still, serene. He breathes softly, slowly. Violet wants to lie up here, on top of this giant-ass skirt Fame has on and never wake up.

Fame needs to get something from the van they rode over in. He moves Violet aside with a soft kiss to his forehead, and once again Violet scrunches up into himself. How could he have ever ignored this wonderful person? He feels like shit. An assistant guides Fame over to the parking lot. He's gone for about five minutes, and when he comes back in, he's in tears.

Fame is beautiful. Inside and out. Fame is truth. He's solid and real and he always understands, he always has time. He's so, so beautiful. Violet wants to punch anyone that dares to disagree. He's the best person Violet has ever met and it's unspeakably awful to see him so broken. They are a strange pair, Violet and Fame. Violet is kind of like a door with a deadbolt, while Fame is an open window with sunlight shining through the dream catchers hanging from it. The tears shimmer on Fame's face and Violet grinds his teeth down so hard they ache.

This time Fame curls into him, and Violet doesn't even have to ask about what happened in the parking lot. The fucking smokers. It makes him furious. His face burns. Fame has never said a mean thing about anyone. Fame is the sweetest person on this whole season. Fame doesn't deserve this.

"Keep your head up," he whispers into Fame's forehead. "You're sickening, bitch."

"And you," Fame whispers, "are going to win this whole thing." His eyes are deep, and there's pain there, but there's truth there too. It's almost more than Violet can take. "And I am so very, very proud of you Violet."

"I love you Fame. I really do. I love my mom, my sisters and Miss Fame." Violet is the one choking up now. He's broken wide open, for the whole world to see, but it's just Fame, Fame Fame.  

"And I love you." Fame strokes Violet's forehead. "Never forget what this feels like, this moment, right now. Be where you are and never take anything for granted. I'll see you on the outside." Violet nods, desperately dabbing at his teary eyes.

"Now," Fame murmurs, "get off of me so that I can go lip synch for my life, bitch." And then he's floating away in a cloud of perfume with a sad smile.

And Violet is so very lost. Violet wishes, more than anything, that he could erode some of his own cynicism, inject some warmth into his smile. He wishes, most of all, that people would leave Miss Fame alone.

\- - -

Katya is tired. He's let the challenge beat him. He's going to lip synch. Kennedy is going to flip and spin and twirl. 

Kennedy is going to win. 

Everything is slow and saturated and beautiful. Katya tries to savor it, tries to soak it all up.

Katya is going to miss this tired concrete stoop where he smokes. He is going to miss Ginger and Pearl and Violet. 

He loves them like he never learned to love himself. He's proud of them, so proud that his heart could rip right out of his chest and slap them silly until they see, each and every one of them, that they are awe-inspiring, that they are courageous, that they are beautiful. 

He knows, regardless of what happens on that stage, that he will have taken things from this experience. 

 

Violet is confidence. He holds his head up high, tight, proud. He attacks everything in his life with veracity, with unflappable courage. He thinks highly of himself. And he should.

Katya wishes he could hold just a pinch of that fire in his own eyes.

Katya wishes he could raise his eyebrows and purse his own lips just so.

Katya wishes he could believe in himself just a quarter of that much.

 

Pearl is, honestly, a little arrogant. More than a little arrogant, actually. Pearl knows how to slide into calm. Pearl can snap his fingers and lower his lids and just relax. But Pearl is unused to being a side conversation. Pearl is too comfortable being the word on everyone's lips. He doesn't know how to deal with anything less.

Katya wishes he could struggle to deal with anything less.

Katya wishes he could just breathe like that, just throw the tension off of his body.

Katya wishes he could calm the jitters that dance up his spine.

 

Ginger. Ginger is a story for another time. 

 

Katya knows that it's his time to leave. He knows it. He's at peace with it. 

He'll miss them, he really will. He's just that much better because he knows them. He can't change anything now. It is what it is, bitch. 

So he stands and smokes and relishes in the moment. And if there's a part of him that wishes he could have more time here with these girls and this thing that he loves, it barely ever rears its ugly head.

\- - -

After Katya leaves, everything goes to shit for Pearl.  

Violet still won't talk to him. 

Ginger apparently hasn't respected him at all this entire time. 

Kennedy sent fucking Katya home. 

Pearl is done. 

He stomps outside, bag of smokes in hand. 

Ginger tries to talk to him, Pearl just nods his head and grits his teeth and waits for it to be over. Soon, it's over and Ginger leaves feeling awfully self-fulfilled, Pearl assumes. Ginger's not fucking sorry about anything he said. Because, in the end, this is just a fucking competition. And nothing else matters. To anyone but Pearl, obviously. 

Violet pokes his head out, takes one look at the storm on Pearl's face, opens his mouth, closes it and then leaves.

Pearl paces, grits his teeth. He sets his sights on the crown, he stares at the picture of himself wearing it that he holds secretly in his head. He stares at it so much that his eyes sting with want. 

And then, one by one he picks up the cigarettes, lights them and tosses them into the gutter. 

Because that's what this thing has become to him. A waste of fucking cigarettes. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it :)  
> have a swell day


End file.
